After a meal.

His wife was wrapped in a bandage and she was wearing a light yellow patterned kimono.

The long hair was slightly bound by a bandage wrapped around the head into a hat.

There is also a tying bow on the corner of the hat bandage.

She held her hands in her chest, bent her eyes with a smile, stood in front of the wooden house, looking at her husband who had already reached halfway through the bamboo path.

She raised one hand high and shouted to her husband:

“A good journey~”

The man smiled and turned around, raised his arms to his wife, saying a brief farewell.

He turned around and looked at the clear and green sky, and a warm current in his heart.

It's almost noon now. If you count the time to find a midwife, you can probably come back before sunset.

After thinking about the approximate time, the man walked on the bamboo path he and his wife, walking further and further.

The wife stood in front of the wooden house and watched her husband's back gradually become smaller. Only after she could not see it did she slowly turn around and walk into the wooden house.

The warm room is full of the atmosphere of a happy life for the two.

His wife looked at the bedding in the room, and she walked up to the tatami and knelt on the futon beside her.

Her eyes glanced at the little things in the room, and a happy smile appeared on her face.

She smiled softly.

Waiting always makes time long.

"Ah, this is." The wife was looking at the items in the room and suddenly found a little bit of maroon cloth in the corner of the cabinet.

Crack...

She gently opened the cabinet and took out neatly stacked clothes from it with her hands and feet.

At the sight, it is a small dark red feather.

"It was his clothes when he was a child..."

The wife held the dress and smiled slightly, and her mind couldn't help but fall into memories.

However, this memory does not seem to be like in memory, it is all beautiful.

...

Ten years ago.

At that time, it was a period of high incidence of epidemics.

"Wuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

"Gu...wuwu..."

As a young woman, she stood in front of a fire, and tears of sadness flowed out of her black eyes. She looked at the beating flames in front of her sadly.

When she was young, she knew that it was not someone else who was lying in the flames.

It was her family who died of illness.

"Father...Mother...Brother..." Her eyes were crying red, her nose was sore, and her stomach was empty, but she still wanted to vomit something.

All the family members were dead.

The grief in her heart seemed to drown everything, making her young so at a loss.

For her young, family is everything to her.

But now, everything about her disappeared in a flash, leaving her alone.

Others who walked around covered their noses with their hands, leaving her far away, fearing that they would also have contracted some disease.

She stood in front of the flames in a daze, watching the flames gradually burning out, and watching some people who were responsible for cremation with cloth wrapped around their faces to clean up the remaining ashes.

She stayed until night, and she never left.

Until the next day, it's almost dawn.

She seemed to have just walked out of the truth that her family had died and left here like a walking corpse.

She was walking aimlessly.

Walk from the river to the street.

From the street to the fields again.

When she came to her senses, she suddenly realized that she seemed to have gone a little too far.

I don’t know when there was a small wooden tub in my hand.

She came to her senses, her eyes that were already crying and swollen were in unbearable pain. She sat on the path next to the paddy field and placed her legs in the paddy field.

"Cough...!"

Feeling the cool touch of water, tears once again gushed out of her eyes. She gritted her teeth and lowered her head, and tears blurred her vision.

"Woo wow wow ah...!" She cried loudly, covering her face helplessly, and felt extremely confused in her heart.

Tears as big as beans dripped down her face. She wiped her face with her dirty little hands, but she couldn't stop her tears.

It seemed like a hole was missing in my heart, and tears kept pouring out of the hole.

At this time, she felt a little itchy feeling coming from her feet in the paddy field.

She sobbed, her red nose twitched, and her swollen eyes looked into the paddy fields.

A group of black tadpoles were wandering around her ankles, looking so unhappy.

Seeing this, she slowly stood up.

I picked up the wooden barrel beside me and just wanted to do something, but I was stunned again.

The tadpoles have their own family, and their own family...

The tears seemed to have dried up. She stared blankly at the blue sky and clouds in the sky, and stood still.

He inserted his feet into the pool, feeling the coolness coming from his ankles, and held the wooden barrel motionless.

At this time.

"Da da da da!"

A rapid sound of running came from a distance.

"Dada..."

As the sound of running approached, it suddenly became slow and finally stopped.

The confused girl didn't notice the sound of running behind her, but just stood in the paddy field, holding up the wooden barrel in her hand in a daze.

She didn't notice that there was a boy wearing dark red clothes watching her behind her.

The boy who stopped to run looked at her.

A small white cloth strap was slung across the dark red clothes, and all his luggage was contained.

The boy also stared at the girl's back blankly, and the girl looked into the sky in the distance.

"What are you doing?" The boy's red pupils did not have a highlight. He just stood there and spoke to the girl.

The girl who didn't notice was not startled by the boy who suddenly made a sound, but instead answered blankly:

"The epidemic... caused everyone in the family to die."

As she said that, she started sobbing again, and her tone also had a crying voice.

“It’s lonely alone.”

"So, I want to bring the tadpoles in the rice fields home."

After saying that, she was stunned again and stood there blankly.

It took a long time.

The sun sets.

The sun gradually sets.

She bent down stiffly and poured the tadpoles that had been put in the wooden barrel back into the paddy fields.

"Don't you take them home?" The boy's voice came from behind.

He also stood here all day with him.

"Well..." she replied: "These children who were forced to leave their family... are pitiful."

Almost without thinking, the boy looked at the girl's back and spoke in a plain tone, as if he was telling something that had been decided:

"Then I'll go home with you!"

"Hey..." She turned her head, tears in her eyes turned into tears, and she stared blankly at the boy's expressionless face.
To be continued...